Guest Post: Frances Hoelsema Gets Mushy

Hey all! Brad here. I recently asked bloggers to help me out promoting my latest release, my non-fiction book on discipleship, and I assured them that I would be happy to return the favor when the time came. It's the decent thing to do, after all. Well, Frances Hoelsema was one of the authors who stepped up to help. She writes romance and asked for the chance to spotlight her Neighbors series on my blog. I was happy to oblige. Her post is below. If these books appeal, why not check them out?

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Are you the kind of person that enjoys a clean, easy-to-read, feel-good, great-ending love story? If so, Frances Hoelsema has the books for you!

GROWING UP NEIGHBORS:
Genre: General Fiction/Young Adult/Sweet Romance

In November 2014, Frances's debut novel, Growing Up Neighbors, was published, and since then has gained great reviews. From "brilliant" to "believable" and all the good in between, Growing Up Neighbors is a book that is sure to please. This is the first in what she calls her Neighbors series, a series of three standalone novels that revolve around a romance amongst neighbors.

Blurb: Little Deborah Harrington stared across the street the day the Michaels family moved in. Who was this family? Would she even like them? Nicholas Michaels hated the fact he had to move away from everything and everyone in his life, but his feelings change when he meets the Harringtons. Deborah and Nicholas become the best of friends, and as the children grow up, their friendship deepens. But when tragedy strikes, will this cause them to part ways? Or will it perhaps make them realize they may have stronger feelings for one another before it's too late?

Excerpt:

When Deborah made sure she was alone with Nicholas, she started to talk to him.

“Hey, Nick. It’s me, Debbie," Deborah said, reaching for his hand as she sat down next to him.

"I came by yesterday to see you, but didn't get to stay long. I'm hoping today I’ll do better.”

She spent a few moments in silence with him, just being with him and watching all his vital signs. It had in fact appeared that there was no change, but Deborah remained optimistic.

Nicholas’ weak and lifeless frame still seemed strange to her. She had no idea how to handle someone who was in a coma or what to say to them. So she just figured she’d talk to him like any other time they talked.

“Your mom’s a mess, you know. I saw her today so that I could get some things to bring to you and you could see how worried and sad she is. She wants you to pull through this. We all want you to pull through this. I’m sure she’s been here to see you. At least I hope so. Has anyone else visited you?”

Duh, he can’t answer that, Deborah thought, feeling stupid for even asking.

Good thing no one else is here to hear me talk to myself.

After sitting in silence for a while, Deborah decided to give talking to Nicholas another go.

“So I have no idea what to say to you because you’re in a coma. Maybe I should just pretend you’re sleeping. Then again, I don’t talk to sleeping people either,” Deborah slightly chuckled.

“I can’t wait for you to wake up so I can talk to you about everything that’s happened lately. I want to tell you about my graduation and plans for the future. Or at least I thought I had plans. I’m not sure I’ll stick to them if you’re not well.”

Deborah sat still for a moment, thinking about what she had hoped to do in the next couple of months. Before Nicholas’ accident she was extremely excited and sure she knew what she wanted to do. She even had everything set in stone and picked out. All she had to do was wait a while longer for it all to unfold.

However, now that one of her closest friends was lying in a coma for who knows how long, she didn’t really care if she went through with any of it.

Hopeless romantics of all ages have enjoyed this book, as will you! Growing Up Neighbors is available in print and on kindle, all through Amazon. Just go to www.amzn.com/B00PJGYW40 and select the formatting of your choice. As always, Growing Up Neighbors is #FREE on Kindle Unlimited! Can't beat that :)



NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS:
Genre: Contemporary Romance

March of 2016 marked the release of Frances's second book, Next Door Neighbors. This is book two in her Neighbors series. Although a new release, there has been great response to it, with one review stating they "loved it" and were "glad it ended the way it did".

Blurb: Elena Montgomery, an elderly victim of fibromyalgia, has two main loves in her life: Brian, her attractive and hard-working son; and Jill Stevens, her caring friend and next door neighbor. When Brian and Jill meet for the first time, they have a chemistry that no one can deny. Although Jill finds herself wanting to get closer to Brian, she believes she can’t. Being hurt in the past, she vows to remain single the rest of her life, thinking it’s better not to love than to love and get burned. Brian, on the other hand, wants to get to the bottom of her fears and show her that not all men are the same. He is determined to win her trust, her heart and her hand in marriage. Through pain, passion and pursuit, will Brian be able to prove to Jill what true love is all about?

Excerpt:

For the few brief seconds that they gazed into one another’s eyes, Brian’s urge to kiss Jill grew intensely. If there was ever going to be a moment to display his affection, this was it. Brian slowly, eagerly leaned over to just inches before Jill’s lips, stopping just shy of delivering their first kiss. Excited she didn’t move away, he reached his destination, brushing his lips with hers.

Their kiss started off gently, softly. It was tender and sweet. The longer it lasted, though, the more Jill had melted into it, and the deeper and more passionate it became.

She needed him.

He needed her.

But a moment later Jill froze. The heat between them instantly turned to ice as she abruptly pulled away from what the two of them were enjoying just seconds ago.

Puzzled, Brian asked, “Is everything all right?”

She couldn’t do it. As much as Jill admitted to wanting Brian and as great as their kiss was, traveling down that road again was too big a risk. And with him leaving soon, she didn’t want to start something she could never finish. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I can’t allow myself to get involved with you or any other man again.”

Providing no other explanation, she completely freed herself from Brian’s hold and ran out of the room.

Brian followed swiftly while shouting, “But I’m not like…”

With the slam of a door, Jill was gone.

Next Door Neighbors is also available in print and on the kindle. Please visit www.amzn.com/B01D8XZJ1U if you would like to purchase. And, like Growing Up Neighbors, this novel is also #FREE on Kindle Unlimited!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Frances Hoelsema is a wife and mother residing in Michigan where she gets to enjoy all four seasons, autumn being her favorite. After earning a degree in business and transcription, she now gets the best of both worlds by working from home as a real-time writing manager for an international transcription firm.

In her spare time, Frances thoroughly enjoys traveling, kayaking, hiking, shopping and loving on her cats. She is also an avid reader and writer that loves to engage with others through social media.

Some concepts that Frances stands for are positive parenting, homeschooling, clean eating and pursuing a relationship with Christ instead of pursuing religion. She also believes in never giving up; that everyone should keep pursuing their dreams.

Frances loves to imagine a good story and write it to life so she’s always busy working on her next novel. If you would like to find out the latest news from her, please visit her blog at: www.franceshoelsema.wordpress.com.

You may also connect with her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/frances.hoelsema.author or on Twitter: @FrancesHoelsema.

Foolish Fighting Followed by Fallout

Cover art. Cover art never significantly changes.

“War. War never changes.”

These are the words that greet us each time a new entry in the Fallout series hits consoles and

computers, and this leads us into our theofictionology post for today.

Fallout 4 is the latest in the series. It was hotly anticipated and shipped $750 million worth of the game in the first 24 hours after its Nov. 10, 2015 release. The plot this time around features a parent (you can be a man or woman) who survives a nuclear war by being frozen underground for 200 years or so, witnesses their spouse being murdered in front of their eyes, and is helpless to stop their infant son Shaun from being kidnapped by the killers. The Sole Survivor (ie you) is finally released from their icy slumber and sets out to rescue their son from the shadowy, robot-makin’ Institute…all the while getting distracted by private eye cases to solve, settlements to protect, towns to build, beer-producing robots to deliver, superheroes to impersonate and so, so, so much more. See, this is a Fallout game. I’ve recently seen people critical of this installment saying they only dropped 40 hours or so into it before taking a break. 40 hours. That’s not too shabby for a single-player game, and you definitely won’t experience all there is to experience in this game if you walk away then…but, in this series, people are used to investing hundreds of hours.

But that critical element has seemed especially noisy when it comes to this game. Patricia Hernandez, of popular video game blogging site Kotaku, concluded that, while she’s enjoying herself, it doesn’t feel like a Fallout game. The modern games look a whole lot different than the early ones, sure, but even earlier modern installments Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas (the latter of which has already been the focus of a blog post by yours truly) still let you focus a great deal on dialogue and playing the game in a variety of ways, but Fallout 4, while still maintaining a strong focus on exploration, doesn’t offer a lot of variety, unless by variety you mean “what weapon to kill other characters and creatures with.”

This is a series in which one of the installments let you confront the big bad guy and convince him to give up his evil plot. That’s right. A video game that let you talk your way out of a boss fight—heck, out of the boss fight.

But Fallout 4? In the Kotaku article I linked to above, the author describes stumbling across a track dedicated to racing robots. She got excited as she realized what was going on, as she heard the

Ladies and gentlemen, let me present Haley, my Sole Survivor.
The one in front. My armor is behind me and Piper is off to the right.
I don't want to talk about why Piper is dressed like that. It's decent armor.

announcer and began to wonder whether she could bet on the races and couldn’t wait to hobknob with the gamblers. But nope. The area was populated by bad guys and, like most of the game, the only option was to kill or be killed. I actually found my way to the racetrack earlier today, after I had already started writing this post, and I can attest to Patricia’s experience. I didn’t even know what I had found before people were shooting at me.

I’m still enjoying the game, understand, but it’s so much less than I was hoping for. The vast majority of the game boils down to “go there, shoot this,” and my favorite parts are without doubt the missions that deviate from that template. Doesn’t really matter what I want, though. The Commonwealth is a dangerous place, and I can be minding my own business, but if I don’t watch out, I might get my head blown off.

Sort of like being on social media in an election year.

Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about the rage. First of all, I don’t like to bring much in the way of politics into the blog, but I’ll let you know where I’m coming from. I’m a political misanthrope. I pretty much can’t stand anybody. I don’t want to align myself with either party, and hate the two party system. I wish we could abolish political parties, and simply support men and women, finding out where they stand on the issues without a party line to worry about toeing. This would have the added benefit of not dividing us into colors, as people or as states, which I would hope would lead to more critical thought. I hate how much influence people like the Kochs have, as well as the influence

Be honest. Would you really miss them?

that Big Oil and other major lobbyists have in Washington. I think things are broken. Most of the candidates we see are too beholden to this broken system to have much hope of fixing anything. But, then, I don’t much put my hope in man anyway, and certainly not in politicians.

So that’s where I’m at. But it doesn’t matter what I wish for. What matters is reality, so let us face the fact that division is valued in our nation—especially every four years, but most of the rest of the time as well, except perhaps Christmas. We have decided from the deepest, darkest corners of our twisted, bitter little hearts that we’re right and everyone else is an idiot who really shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Fine. But that doesn’t mean we need to shoot first and ask genuine, thoughtful questions never. And especially not as followers of Christ.

There are some behaviors, friends, that we simply need to cut out. Not only do they accomplish nothing and change no minds, they are unbecoming to a believer. We are designed to stand out as salt and light, not degrade ourselves to the same level of enraged uncouthness as the rest of the world. Let’s aim to be a little more Christlike when it comes to:

1.                   Purposefully misunderstanding/misrepresenting the positions of those who disagree with us.

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that this meme
is the result of extensive research.

Memes are great for this. And by great I mean terrible. And I see it all the time. People who support Bernie Sanders are all unemployed and think that they’ll get free stuff without anyone paying for it. I actually saw a Facebook argument that contended that supporters of Ted Cruz believe he’s Jesus Christ Himself. And, yes, the “logic” was so convoluted that I had to put the word logic in quotation marks so it doesn’t sue me for defamation of character for its usage in this paragraph. #1) Can we be

honest that this is pretty childish? #2) When I see someone argue against a blatant misrepresentation of a position, I have to conclude that, at best, the attacker is incapable of grasping the original position. How in the world is that a good strategy?

Now, I’m sure some people genuinely don’t comprehend the ideologies that they oppose so forcefully. In fact, I’m positive about it. Most of these people probably just aren’t interested in actually educating themselves, content to rely on attack ads, soundbites, memes, and the angry ranting of other uninformed individuals. But…well, I hope that doesn’t describe you. And I have seen plenty of people who appear to be deliberately setting up strawman positions only to punch holes through them so they can…what? Feel smart? Attack the candidates they don’t agree with? Mislead the joyfully uninformed? Check the box of the one that should describe the Body of Christ.

(Okay—and are there Cruz supporters who believe him to be the Messiah? Sure. People can believe anything they want. But we all know that this does not represent them as a whole or even a majority, so a smug takedown based on a small percentage of supporters is not fair, nor helpful.)

What sort of complex is it where you considering yourself
smarter than everyone who disagrees with you ever?

2.                   Insulting others based on their political beliefs.

Calling names? Really? What good does that do? I’ve said this before, but I think that the devil is a master of distraction. So many of the activities and tasks that wrap up so much of our time aren’t

good or bad; they simply distract us from where our focus should be. I will submit to you that attacking others on Facebook or Twitter because we disagree with their politics is a clear indication that our focus is not where it ought to be. After all, who are you calling an idiot? There are only two options: a brother or sister in Christ, or the lost who are currently facing an eternity separated from God in hell. We have been commissioned as ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20)!

3.                   Treating our current leaders with disrespect.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1). Peter takes a similar stance in his first epistle. Honestly, it turns my stomach when I see believers publicly, proudly speaking about President Obama with such disrespect. Treating him with open hatred. I saw a missionary recently refer to him as “scumbag in chief” (or something along those lines)! And I am absolutely astounded. Seven years ago, I remember seeing self-professed Christians speaking hopefully about the President of the United States being assassinated. Never mind the frankly idiotic notion of actually wanting to live in

I saw this on Facebook a few days ago, posted by
someone who professes to be a Christian,
and I don't think I could exaggerate how disgusting I find it.

a nation where the elected leader can be murdered while in office, such hatred pouring forth from followers of Jesus Christ is both disgusting and entirely at odds with the work of the Spirit within us.

Do you disagree with President Obama’s policies (or your senator or governor or whomever)? Fine. Disagree with them. But consider how Jesus would disagree before you update your status or post that meme. And, yes, I realize that What Would Jesus Do? has become a cliché, but the concept has not and will not ever be anything other than prudent, and indeed the only choice for the Christ follower.

Perhaps you’re thinking this is all unfair. “I’m just venting,” you might say. Fair enough. I understand the impulse, I do. We live in a fallen world and it’s frustrating—infuriating, even.

But let me ask you: this sort of venting—this venting that materializes as attacks against politicians and supporters who believe differently than we do—does it arise not so much from the reality of our fallen world, but rather from a belief that our candidate or political party is the solution to fix it? Otherwise, I struggle to track the source of the anger. And that belief is woefully misguided. There is only One solution, and He is not running for office.

Regardless of the root cause, however, this partisan backbiting and mudslinging has no place within the Body of Christ. As many of us struggle to find a candidate we would want to invite over for dinner, much less have represent the United States as president, need we look any further than our own newsfeeds to see that our angry, duplicitous politicians can at least be said to represent the nation of voters we’ve become? Hold up a mirror to our social media and you will see reflections of the major candidates, as if born from the vitriolic rants and sarcastic memes that assume anyone who has different political views than us is a moron of astounding proportions.

Listen. Do you want to change the direction of the United States? Share the Gospel. Make disciples of all nations. Vote however you want, but they’ll know we’re Christians by our love for one other (John 13:35), and being a jerk about politics actively gets in the way. Our world may behave like this; we should not.

Real change will come to our nation and our world not through politics or government but through followers of Jesus Christ faithfully making disciples. Go Make Disciples: How Jesus Did It, How We Can Do It explores the methods Jesus used to transform His followers into disciple makers and offers suggestions for how we can do the same today. Available now through Kindle, Nook, iBooks, as well as most ebook retailers, and in paperback.